Russia`s accession could be put off indefinitely?

Ukraine’s joining WTO may influence Russia’s accession to this organization.

RF Deputy Prime Minister sergey Naryshkin claimed this to journalists on Tuesday, according to Prime-Tass.

“This fact must be taken into consideration in the process of talks with Ukraine”, he said.

According to S.Naryshkin, everything will depend on the conditions, which will be set or not by Ukraine.

He also admitted that Ukraine theoretically may join the working group considering Russia’s accession to WTO.

According to RIA Novosti, a source in the Russian delegation of negotiators said if Moscow failed to join the WTO before Kyiv, Russia`s accession could be put off indefinitely. Russia still expects to join the WTO by mid-summer, a deadline mentioned late last year.

Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told the recent World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos that Ukraine was seeking to enter the WTO on unfavorable terms simply to leave Russia behind and gain a certain advantage.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the General Council of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva will consider on Tuesday Ukraine`s membership.

After 14 years of accession negotiations, the Working Party on the Accession of Ukraine successfully adopted Ukraine`s `accession package` in late January, which prompted Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to state a few days later that her country would become a "fully-fledged WTO member" on February 7.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter